Wrestlemania week is upon us once again. And emanating from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, WWE are once again preparing to put on the biggest show in the yearly wrestling calendar.
This article focuses only on Night 2’s matches (see my previous article for discussion of Night 1). The Night 2 card currently is only 6 matches compared to Night 1’s seven matches (this likely being down to plans for Randy Orton vs Kevin Owens having to be thrown out on short notice/a replacement not yet being set in stone). These 6 matches are:
- Cody Rhodes (c) vs. John Cena for the Undisputed WWE title
- IYO SKY (c) vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley for the WWE Women’s World title
- Bron Breakker (c) vs. Penta vs. Finn Bálor vs. Dominik Mysterio for the Intercontinental championship
- Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez (c) vs. Bayley & Lyra Valkyria for the WWE Women’s tag team titles
- Damian Priest vs. Drew McIntyre in a Sin City Street Fight
- AJ Styles vs. Logan Paul
Logan Paul is a highly controversial figure, with several past incidents involving (alleged) Crypto scams, filming a dead body in Japan’s ‘Suicide Forest’ and more. However he is (annoyingly) surprisingly great at Wrestling. This years Wrestlemania will see him face off against AJ Styles, who many would place an argument for being one of the best in ring competitors of recent times, if not of all time. So personal feelings about Logan Paul aside, this should if nothing else be a good match entirely on an in ring level/perspective. With the potential interference of other social media influences, as previous Wrestlemania matches have seen Logan assisted by the interference of KSI & IShowSpeed, so one would assume he has some other influencer/streamer on hand to try and defeat The Phenomenal One.
Over the last year of Drew McIntyre’s career, between his legendary feud with CM Punk, continued hunting of the former Bloodline & trying to reclaim the World Heavyweight Championship. A fact that has flown under the radar is just how often Damian Priest has benefitted from Drew’s losses/other rivalries. Including of course when CM Punk’s assault at last year’s Wrestlemania enabled Priest to cash in his MITB briefcase & Punk again costing McIntyre the chance to reclaim his title in front of his home crowd at Clash in the Castle: Scotland among other incidents. Due to this, McIntyre has promised to destroy Priest once and for all in their ‘Sin City Street Fight’ which (currently) is the only match with a direct stipulation across both nights.
The Women’s tag team division isn’t exactly the most well populated division. Fans often criticise how often teams are seemingly randomly thrown together and given a spotlight over more established teams. And these criticisms only further rose when the team of Women’s Intercontinental Champion, Lyra Valkyria & Bayley won a Gauntlet Match to earn the right to challenge Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez of the Judgement Day for the Women’s Tag Team Championships. With the added questioning of why Lyra is in a match for the Tag Team Championships at Wrestlemania in place of defending her own Women’s Intercontinental Championship. But similarly to with Logan Paul vs AJ Styles, while the surrounding circumstances of the match may draw criticism, all 4 women are extremely talented, so this will no doubt again be a fantastic match from an in ring perspective.
Continuing on the thought of Judgement Day, both Finn Balor and Dominik Mysterio will be fighting to bring the Intercontinental Championship into the group, as part of a Fatal Four way match where the two men, alongside PENTA, who has become a very popular figure in the few short months he has been in the company to challenge Bron Breakker for the title. Tension has been high between Finn & Dominik lately, with Dom being keen to bring a new member into the fold and Balor adamantly against the idea, and depending how this match pans out, tensions may only continue to rise (if not tear the group apart entirely).
Sort of continuing on the train of Judgement Day again, former member Rhea Ripley is also in action attempting to reclaim her Women’s World Championship in a triple threat against Bianca Belair & Champion Iyo Sky. Rhea only fairly recently lost her title to Iyo, down to an inadvertent distraction from Belair, who had just won the Elimination Chamber to secure a title match at Mania, and was ringside to see who she would face at Mania. Continued tensions between the 3, eventually led to Rhea managing to force herself into the match to make it a Triple Threat. All 3 women have very strong followings, so this match is probably the biggest example on the card of a match where different sections of fans will either be ecstatic or crestfallen depending on who walks out as Champion.
And of course, the Main Event will see John Cena compete in his final Wrestlemania Match to try and claim his 17th World Championship and cement his position as the greatest of all time. Cena of course, sold his soul to The Rock at Elimination Chamber, turning his back on fans after 20+ years of what he called a toxic relationship. And Cena has promised that he will beat Cody at Mania, take the title & “ruin wrestling” by holding that belt for the remainder of his Farewell Tour before taking the belt with him when his time is up (and our time is now).
In closing, both nights of Wrestlemania are set to be massive shows, that as normal sort of act as a conventional “season finale” and will set a clean slate for the next year of WWE. And on an entirely personal level, the show being sandwiched between 2 Bank Holidays is the greatest easter gift I could have ever asked for.
